I lost my Hard Drive on an old HP Envy. I replaced the HD but now need WIndows 7 ISO image

[HP-User-NJ]

I replaced the Hard Drive on my HP Envy and now need to reinstall the Operating System Windows 7 64 bit.  I have the product key on the bottom of the Lap Top but since it was pre-installed by HP Microsoft directs me to HP  for the ISO.

Any chance I can download the Windows 7 ISO from here?

[WAWood]

@HP-User-NJ 

Sorry but no.  First of, HP only supplied something known as Recovery Media and that was a set of disks, or USB stick, that could be used to do a factory reset of your PC.  You had to purchase that; you could not download it.

But now, HP no longer carries the media for Win7-era PCs, so there is nothing you can buy.

You can try using Windows images downloaded using the tool from this site -- but there is no guarantee that this download, or the resulting ISO file, is going to work:

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-iso-download-tool

Click the Download: Windows-ISo-Download.exe link. This will download that file to your PC. Double-click that file to run it.

Download the tool, run it, and do the following:
1) Select Windows 7 at the upper right
2) Under Select edition, select SP1 OEM -- this is the same as the HP OEM edition
3) Click the Confirm button
4) Select the product language, click confirm button
6) Select either the 64-bit or 32-bit download
7) Select a folder to save the file -- it's downloading 4GB or so of data, so that will take a while depending on the download speed. The progress bar might not show any progress but when the download is nearly done, a window will pop open indicating the ISO file is being moved from a temporary download directory to the folder you selected. The screen will then say Download Complete.

Once you have this, you have a choice of media to create:
1) If you can boot from CD, download and install ImgBurn and use the Write Image to Disk option to create a bootable DVD.
2) If you can boot from USB, download and install RUFUS and use the option to create a bootable USB stick from the ISO file.

[HP-User-NJ]

Thank you for the response. I hunted around a bit more after submitting my post yesterday and found a page on the HP site for ordering the “Recovery Disk” for my model of Envy.  It wasn’t cheap at nearly $60 dollars but I’m already in to this restore for a $50 Hard Drive so I figured I’d give it a try.   It’ll come on a USB like you described but I’m not sure what I’ll be left with after running it.  If it provides a useable laptop I’ll be satisfied.  I’ve got copies of my documents on external drive so hopefully I’ll just need to install apps like MS Word, excel, mail...  

i also saw a reference to an 3rd party outfit called Computer Surgeons that are purported  to supply recover disks.

I’ll post an update with results.

thanks again for responding 

[WAWood]

@HP-User-NJ 

The HP Recovery Media erases the entire content of the drive, recreates the original partitions and repopulates them.

When it is done, your PC will reboot and you will be back into the initial setup.

So basically, it retains nothing.